European countries, including Britain, today ruled out talks with al-Qaida after a tape recording from a man claiming to be Osama bin Laden offered a truce to any of them if they stopped "attacking Muslims or interfering in their affairs".

In the tape, broadcast on Arab television, the speaker said that recent events and opinions polls had shown that European people wanted a truce and made an appeal over the heads of their leaders.

"A review of the deaths in our land and your land reveal an important truth, which is that there is an injustice done to both us and you by your leaders who send your sons - despite your objections - to kill and be killed."

But it offered no such deal to the United States, Israel or the United Nations. "All of them are a fatal danger to the world, and the Zionist lobby is their most dangerous and difficult member, and we insist, God willing, on continuing to fight them," the speaker said.

The Foreign Office said Britain would not negotiate with al-Qaida. "Their attacks are against the very idea of coexistence and conflict is their raison d'etre," a spokesman said. "To hide in the face of the threat is not an answer.

"The right response is to continue to confront terrorism, not give in to its demands."

The French president, Jacques Chirac, said during a visit to Algeria: "Terrorism is a barbarous act that attacks innocent people. One cannot lean on religion or any other motivation to perpetrate terrorist acts. No discussion with terrorism."

Spain's incoming foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, said: "What we want is peace, democracy and freedom. We don't have to listen to or answer the tape."

Germany, which opposed US-led military action in Iraq but is now helping train Iraqi police, also ruled out negotiations with al-Qaida.

"There can be no negotiations with terrorists and serious criminals like Osama bin Laden," a government spokesman said. "The international community must pursue the fight against international terrorism together," he added. "Germany will continue to make its contribution."

The European commision president, Romano Prodi, said: "There is no possibility for negotiation under terrorist threat."

In Italy - shocked by the execution of hostage Fabrizio Quattrocchi by his Iraqi captors - the foreign minister, Franco Frattini, said talks with al-Qaida were "unthinkable".

The kidnappers blamed Italy's refusal to withdraw its troops from Iraq for the death and threatened to kill the three other Italians they held, one after another, if their demands were not met. Around 40 people - mainly aid workers, contractors and security officials - are believed to be held hostage by a number of groups in Iraq.

Mr Quattrocchi's execution and the purported Bin Laden tape, which a leading US Democrat, Senator Joseph Biden, said was an "opportunistic" attempt to split Europe and the US, came as the prime minister, Tony Blair, flew to Washington for talks with George Bush.

The two leaders are expected to discuss Iraq, the continuing "war on terror" and the future of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process following Mr Bush's announcement that he believed it was "unrealistic" to expect Israel to withdraw from lands occupied in the 1967 war.

If genuine, the tape - broadcast by the Dubai-based al-Arabia station - would give further proof that Bin Laden is alive and in touch with recent events. The voice on the tape referred both to the killing of the Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in an Israeli helicopter strike last month, vowing revenge, and the March 11 Madrid train bombs.

The Reuters news agency said that the authenticity of the tape could not be immediately proved but that the voice sounded like Bin Laden's.

The al-Qaida leader - blamed for the September 11 attacks on the US, and indicted in the US for the 1998 east Africa embassy bombings - is thought to be hiding in the Afghan-Pakistani border regions.

The tape said that the Madrid attack, which killed 191 people, was repayment for Iraq, Afghanistan and "the real problem of the occupation of all of Palestine".

"What happened on September 11 and March 11 are your goods returned to you so that you know security is a necessity for all," the tape said.

"Be aware that if you describe us and our actions as terrorism then you should describe yourselves and your actions as well ... Under what grace are your victims innocent and ours dust, and under which doctrine is your blood blood and ours water?" it asked.

The offer of a truce, or the withholding of future attacks, follows similar messages from the individuals blamed for the Madrid train bombings. The Spanish newspaper El País last week reported that a video discovered in the flat of the seven suspects who blew themselves up in the Madrid dormitory town of Leganes threatened further attacks in Spain if troops were not pulled out of both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The purported Bin Laden tape said that the truce would last three months and could be extended, but that it would not begin until the "last soldier leaves our countries".

"Whoever rejects this truce and wants war, we are its sons and whoever wants this truce, here we bring it," the speaker said. "Stop shedding our blood to save your own and the solution to this simple but complex equation is in your hands."

The speaker insisted that Russians were only killed after they attacked Afghanistan and Chechnya, Europeans after invading Iraq and Afghanistan and those in the World Trade Centre after the US supported "the Jews in Palestine [and invaded] the Arabian peninsular".

A former British ambassador to the US, Sir Christopher Meyer, said Europeans would be wrong to think there was the possibility of a deal with al-Qaida. "There is no getting out of this, that is the point," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. "The challenge of terrorism is a global one and if it is global it affects Europe as much as it does the United States.

"One of the things we have to say about the Madrid bombing, the killing of this Italian this morning and the Osama bin Laden message is that this is truly an attempt to divide and rule. The Madrid bombing was as horrific as it was political in its intent."